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Why short stories about Cuba? What does Cuba represent for me today? Hard questions indeed since throughout the years Cuba has meant something different to me at each phase. When I left it in 1966 as a child, Cuba was a place to flee from because of the dictatorship that had initially upturned and eventually destroyed our lives. Once in the US and for many years afterwards, in my mind Cuba faded into a latent background as I created for myself a new life and identiy in California, graduated from Loyola-Marymount University and later from UCLA, and then focused my energies into pursuing a career or two. Cuba became The Past, recalled occassionally is a sepia-toned mixture of sweetness and bitterness. It remained in this germinal state for a very long time. Some years ago my beloved father died. At that time for me much of Cuba also followed him to the grave--but not forever. In time, his death became for me a point of reassessment, of recollection, a visitation to a past that I had not tended to but which despite my neglect had survived many winters of oblivion. Suddenly, Cuba, its past, my past, the future, my writing, all of that was born again from that journey of memory and introspection that my father's death in time inspired in me. Today Cuba is once again very much alive in my memory, in my desires for it for the future, becoming, as it has, the pivotal inspiration for my short stories. I chose to write about Colonial Cuba, I choose to write about the years of the Republic, and I choose to write about a future Cuba. I select my time settings carefully. I have chosen not to write about the Communist era directly because I feel that that tragedy has defined Cuba for too many for too long and I choose not to give a dictatorship the last word or the pride of place in either my narratives or in what I wish to share with others about my native country, so immensely rich in its history and variety. Taking the broadest view of Cuba possible, I choose not to aid with my writing in making the years of Communist dictatorship the defining moment of Cuban history. Perhaps once Communism in Cuba has finally come to its logical end and a new Cuba has firmly emerged, I may consider it as a source for future stories, as a writer should never rule out of his works in the absolute any topic. Finally, why short stories? Through the genre of the short story, which I treasure dearly, I am able to explore many worlds in one anthology, experiment with many techniques, many voices, many settings, yet have them all contribute to what is for me a cohesive and exciting artistic experience once the collectin has been composed. As in Cubist art, when I write I always propose to look at Cuba at the same time from many different perspectives in each collection of short stories yet somehow leading to the coalescence of one creative whole. Cuba as inspiration, then, will be with me now for the rest of my writing experience, an exciting proposition!
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